Interesting post. It really amazes me that somebody would go to such lengths to attempt to interpret the vagaries of this latest update, despite all the complete garbage it's produced, and continues to produce, and all the collateral damage it's created, and then tell people that, in addition to working like an "unfed slave" to produce compelling content, they need to constantly police their websites link profile to ensure that events that are entirely out of their control don't get them hosed back to page five for no apparent reason. Oh, and by the way, it's all based on speculation, because nobody outsite the inner sanctum at Big G really has any idea how this stuff works, except apparently not very well, unless you're a big brand.

To be completely honest with you (and I have no illusions anybody cares), I think anybody who preaches pure "white hat," content based SEO (looking directly at you, SEOMoz) should be ashamed of themselves for not condemning Google over this latest fiasco. Seriously, this level of bootlicking for a company that has repeatedly demonstrated it's business practices to be highly unethical, not to mention sanctimonious and self-righteous in the extreme, is rather nauseating.

I mean, punishing people for actively obtaining links, while you pay the rent by selling links, or ranking based on a "qualty score" that your own SERPS fail miserably? Is there some kind of "shame-ectomy" involved when you get hired by Google? Because that behavior would make a sociopath blush. That's not to mention banning 15,000 of your advertisers overnight because they suddenly aren't "quality," even though they just spent years helping you build your ad system and get rich. Or, the outright havoc that's been created in honest peoples' lives by Penguin, businesses ruined overnight and garbage promoted to page one, and big brands getting a big pass.

Google owns search, let's face it. If you want search traffic, you deal with Google. It just amazes me that a website that supposedly promotes success through quality, content, user experience, etc (all quite noble ambitions) would give these hacks a pass, and seriously tell people they need to police their own link profile so they don't get slapped.

And, that's without even mentioning the negative SEO industry you're basically implicitly stating is now going to ramp up bigtime. I mean, come on! How to you do all that with a straight face?

And that's all I have to say about that. Just had to get that out of my system.

Well, that was kinda interesting. But, with all due respect, your response to the huge market for negative SEO Google will create with these penalties is to keep an eye on your WMT and submit a preemptive reconsideration request if you see anybody messing with you? Seriously?

Another thing you might have mentioned is that multitudes of people who played by Google's rules and never actively built links have been completely hosed by this update. We're talking out-of-business hosed.

And, how exactly do you know Google's going to "ignore 99% of spam links anyway?" Because of something Matt Cutts said in a talk years ago? Clearly, Penguin is a new paradigm. Not sure how that applies.

Oh, and you might also have mentioned how much the new SERPS suck now for so many searches. That seems relevant. That's because lots of quality sites actively built links, at the same time they actively worked on the quality of their sites. For some, those two things go hand in hand, despite Google's sanctimonious proclamations to the contrary.

So, now we get:

1) Crappy article on eHow.com

2) Crappy article on instructables.com

3) Crappy article on wikihow.com

4) Crappy video on youTube

5) Oh look, another crappy article on eHow.com

All old, out of date, and crappy. But hey, at least they don't have any evil "spam" links built to them.